In early 2005 we were in the midst of homestudy prep for our 8th child, our 4th adoption. I was a tad more relaxed than I had been the first time around. But still, there's something about knowing someone is coming to inspect your house that can rattle nerves.

I did the cleaning over several days. By the time we got down to the morning of the homestudy, I had almost everything done. One of the things I'd saved for the last minute, though, was taking down the black-out shade in my 2 year old's bedroom.

She had a big window right over her bed that let a lot of cold air drop down onto her bed in the winter nights AND was waking her with all the might in the early mornings. So that particular winter, we'd draped an old quilt over the curtain rod as a makeshift black-out shade.

A couple hours before the social worker arrived, I went in to give the bedroom one last straightening. I pulled the blanket off the window, and went to lift the miniblind to let in even more light.

To my very great horror, I discovered mold- MOLD!- growing all over the back side of the miniblind AND all along the edges of the window. Apparently the blanket had trapped the window condensation right against the back of the metal miniblind.

Ack. Now I am not a perfect housekeeper. But never had I seen mold like this. And here we had a social worker arriving in less than 2 hours.

My first thought was bleach. Lots of it. I went to work scrubbing at those miniblind slats, one by one, with bleach water and a wash rag.

Half an hour into the task I was panicking. I had 1/4 of the miniblind moderately clean, the room smelled like a Chlorox factory, and now it was only a little over an hour until the social worker arrived. I wondered when mold was considered toxic mold, and if a family had ever failed a homestudy for it.

My hubby came in, surveyed my panicked scrubbing, and said, "Hey, how about I just run down to Walmart and buy you a new shade?"

Brilliant, wonderful man! Why hadn't I THOUGHT of that??

I sent him off speedily. Then I took down the miniblind, opened the window to air out the room, and wiped the window edges clean. Forty-five minutes later my genius hubby was back with a brand new miniblind, which we managed to install a whole 15 minutes before the social worker came.

Yes, she approved us. And no, not one child breathed a word about our little mold fiasco that morning.

But that was the last time I ever used an old quilt for a room darkening shade!
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Oh, and just in case you now fear I live in a dungeon, here are some pictures of my house to assuage your concerns...mold is the exception, not the rule!